


like real people do

by tangomarine



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Amnesiac Doug Eiffel, M/M, POV Second Person, Post-Canon, Stream of Consciousness, im feeling gay and sentimental in this chili's tonight, there is not one single name in this fic sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:40:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26893816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tangomarine/pseuds/tangomarine
Summary: named after the hozier song. thought it was fitting
Relationships: Doug Eiffel/Warren Kepler
Comments: 1
Kudos: 12





	like real people do

**Author's Note:**

> named after the hozier song. thought it was fitting

You find him at the bus stop, trying to stay out of the rain and only mostly succeeding, though not enough that he can light any of the cigarettes he just fished out of his pocket. He doesn’t have a car, and his license is still suspended, so it’s you who drives him home. You go perfectly still when he falls asleep leaning against you, head tipped into the crook of your neck, breathing soft and even. You keep your eyes straight ahead and stay motionless as stone for the next ten or fifteen minutes, despite the way your pulse stutters when he gently leans into you. The car stops at a red light and he wakes up, straightening in his seat and not looking at you. It’s nice to know some things never change. 

When he invites you inside he doesn’t look tense or worried or angry. There’s no venom in his smile. 

“Come on,” he says. “I’ll make dinner.”

You follow him because you have nowhere else to be but alone, which is starting to grate on your nerves. It’s strange, to say the least, seeing someone so unaffected by you. Seeing _him_ so unaffected.

Dinner turns out to be _huevos rancheros_ , because it’s the only thing he half-remembers how to make. He seems content to let you pace around his apartment while he cooks, and when you come up silently behind him and he turns to see you hovering awkwardly inches away, he starts slightly but doesn’t flinch. There’s no fear in his expression, just mild surprise. 

It’s bizarre, looking over his shoulder and passing him spices when he asks, listening to him humming because he doesn’t remember how to whistle. It feels like some surreal dream, like any moment you’ll wake up and the memory of warmth in his eyes will flicker out like a candle in the wind. 

But for now, you can pretend that you’re anything close to human. He can pretend that he remembers his past, that he actually knows who you are. The two of you can play at being real people. As if you’re just someone he likes, he’s just someone important to you, and that’s all you’ve ever been to each other. 

As much as you hate to think it, you don’t want to break this. You really do want to listen to him talk about what a mistake it was to start Star Wars from the beginning, because the prequels are just _awful_. It matters to you whether he tries to quit smoking and finally puts the nicotine patches in his medicine cabinet to good use. You care, bone-deep and irrevocably, about this man who’s so messy and bright and who is trying so hard to be a person. Who, against all odds, cares right back. 

Watching him move around the kitchen feels terrifyingly new and achingly familiar at the same time, like the two of you are falling into a long-forgotten routine, two puzzle pieces slotting perfectly together. When he rises up on the balls of his feet to press a kiss to the corner of your mouth, it feels like a lightning strike, like a miracle, something that happens once in a lifetime if you’re lucky. You’re so used to farewell kisses, to secret kisses, to kisses that demand something of you. He kisses you like he’s done it a thousand times before. 

You turn your head to kiss him properly, and to your own surprise it’s because you want to. Not because you want something from him. Because you want him, with all the strings attached, and isn’t that wild? Isn’t that just so impossible, that he could ever be so much to someone like you? 

“Do you even know who I am?” you murmur in the breath of space between you. _Who are you? How do I separate the man I remember and the man you are now? How do I add you up and get a person?_

He replies, “Maybe not, but there’s a lot of people I don’t know, including myself, so maybe it doesn’t matter,” and plants a kiss at your jawline, just under your ear.

“You don’t know what I’ve done.” _I don’t know what I’m doing._

“Not all of it, but I know what I’m doing right here. Right now.” He kisses your cheek. “I know what I want, and I’m fine with that. That’s enough.”

You suck in a breath through your teeth, pulling away from his answer. “What do you want?”

“Whoever you are,” he says softly. “Whoever you turn out to be.”

He presses his lips to yours again, and you let him kiss you like he means it.

**Author's Note:**

> lmk what y'all thought! comments give me life


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